Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)
The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, the conference resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and the other losing nations were not given a voice in the deliberations; this later gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades. The arrangements made by this conference are considered one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history.[1]
See also: Treaty of Versailles, Rue Nitot, and Diplomatic history of World War I
The conference involved diplomats from 32 countries and nationalities. Its major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations and the five peace treaties with the defeated states. Main arrangements agreed upon in the treaties were, among others, the transition of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates" from the hands of these countries chiefly into the hands of Britain and France; the imposition of reparations upon Germany; and the drawing of new national boundaries, sometimes involving plebiscites, to reflect ethnic boundaries more closely.
US President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 commissioned a group of about 150 academics to research topics likely to arise in diplomatic talks on the European stage, and to develop a set of principles to be used for the peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The results of this research were summarized in the so called Fourteen Points document that became the basis for the terms of the German surrender during the conference, as it had earlier been the basis of the German government's negotiations in the Armistice of 11 November 1918.
The main result of the conference was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; Article 231 of that treaty placed the whole guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies". That provision proved very humiliating for German leaders, armies and citizens alike, and set the stage for the expensive reparations that Germany was intended to pay, only a small portion of which had been delivered when it stopped paying after 1931. The five great powers at that time, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States, controlled the Conference. The "Big Four" leaders were French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Together with teams of diplomats and jurists, they met informally 145 times and agreed upon all major decisions before they were ratified.[2]
The conference began on 18 January 1919. With respect to its end, Professor Michael Neiberg noted, "Although the senior statesmen stopped working personally on the conference in June 1919, the formal peace process did not really end until July 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed."[3] The entire process is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", although only the signing of the first treaty took place in the historic palace; the negotiations occurred at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris.
The Conference formally opened on 18 January 1919 at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris.[4][5] This date was symbolic, as it was the anniversary of the proclamation of William I as German Emperor in 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, shortly before the end of the Siege of Paris[6] – a day itself imbued with significance in Germany, as the anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.[7]
The Delegates from 27 nations (delegates representing 5 nationalities were for the most part ignored) were assigned to 52 commissions, which held 1,646 sessions to prepare reports, with the help of many experts, on topics ranging from prisoners of war to undersea cables, to international aviation, to responsibility for the war. Key recommendations were folded into the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, which had 15 chapters and 440 clauses, as well as treaties for the other defeated nations.
The five major powers, France, Britain, Italy, the U.S., and Japan, controlled the Conference. Amongst the "Big Five", in practice Japan only sent a former prime minister and played a small role; and the "Big Four" leaders dominated the conference.[8]
The four met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which were then ratified by other attendees.[2] The open meetings of all the delegations approved the decisions made by the Big Four. The conference came to an end on 21 January 1920, with the inaugural General Assembly of the League of Nations.[9][10]
Five major peace treaties were prepared at the Paris Peace Conference, with, in parentheses, the affected countries:
The major decisions were the establishment of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates", chiefly to members of the British Empire and to France; reparations imposed on Germany; and the drawing of new national boundaries, sometimes with plebiscites, to better reflect the forces of nationalism. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies".[11] This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for very high reparations Germany was supposed to pay. Germany paid only a small portion, before reparations ended in 1931. According to British historian AJP Taylor, the treaty seemed to Germans "wicked, unfair" and "dictation, a slave treaty" but one which they would repudiate at some stage if it "did not fall to pieces of its own absurdity."[12]
As the conference's decisions were enacted unilaterally and largely on the whims of the Big Four, Paris was effectively the center of a world government during the conference, which deliberated over and implemented the sweeping changes to the political geography of Europe. Most famously, the Treaty of Versailles itself weakened the German military and placed full blame for the war and costly reparations on Germany's shoulders, and the later humiliation and resentment in Germany is often sometimes considered by historians to be one of the direct causes of Nazi Party's electoral successes and one of the indirect causes of World War II.
The League of Nations proved controversial in the United States since critics said it subverted the powers of the US Congress to declare war. The US Senate did not ratify any of the peace treaties and so the United States never joined the League. Instead, the 1921–1923 Harding administration concluded new treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. The German Weimar Republic was not invited to attend the conference at Versailles. Representatives of White Russia but not Communist Russia were at the conference. Numerous other nations sent delegations to appeal for various unsuccessful additions to the treaties, and parties lobbied for causes ranging from independence for the countries of the South Caucasus to Japan's unsuccessful proposal for racial equality to the other great powers.
Greek approach[edit]
Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos took part in the conference as Greece's chief representative. Wilson was said to have placed Venizelos first for personal ability among all delegates in Paris.[56]
Venizelos proposed Greek expansion in Thrace and Asia Minor, which had been part of the defeated Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire; Northern Epirus, Imvros; and Tenedos for the realization of the Megali Idea. He also reached the Venizelos-Tittoni agreement with the Italians on the cession of the Dodecanese (apart from Rhodes) to Greece. For the Pontic Greeks, he proposed a common Pontic-Armenian state.
As a liberal politician, Venizelos was a strong supporter of the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations.
Chinese approach[edit]
The Chinese delegation was led by Lu Zhengxiang, who was accompanied by Wellington Koo and Cao Rulin. Koo demanded Germany's concessions on Shandong be returned to China. He also called for an end to imperialist institutions such as extraterritoriality, legation guards, and foreign leaseholds. Despite American support and the ostensible spirit of self-determination, the Western powers refused his claims but instead transferred the German concessions to Japan. That sparked widespread student protests in China on 4 May, later known as the May Fourth Movement, which eventually pressured the government into refusing to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Thus, the Chinese delegation at the conference was the only one not to sign the treaty at the signing ceremony.[57]
Other nations' approach[edit]
All-Russian Government (Whites)[edit]
While Russia was formally excluded from the Conference[58] although it had fought against the Central Powers for three years. However the Russian Provincial Council (chaired by Prince Lvov[59]), the successor to the Russian Constituent Assembly and the political arm of the Russian White movement attended the conference and was represented by the former tsarist minister Sergey Sazonov,[4] who, if the tsar had not been overthrown, would most likely have attended the conference anyway. The Council maintained the position of an indivisible Russia, but some were prepared to negotiate over the loss of Poland and Finland.[60] The Council suggested all matters relating to territorial claims or demands for autonomy within the former Russian Empire be referred to a new All-Russian Constituent Assembly.
Baltic states[edit]
Delegations from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, led respectively by Jaan Poska, Jānis Čakste and Augustinas Voldemaras, also participated in the conference, and successfully achieved international recognition of the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.[61]
Women's approach[edit]
An unprecedented aspect of the conference was concerted pressure brought to bear on delegates by a committee of women, who sought to establish and entrench women's fundamental social, economic, and political rights, such as that of suffrage, within the peace framework. Although they were denied seats at the Paris Conference, the leadership of Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger, the president of the French Union for Women's Suffrage, caused an Inter-Allied Women's Conference (IAWC) to be convened, which met from 10 February to 10 April 1919.[76][77]
The IAWC lobbied Wilson and then the other delegates of the Paris Conference to admit women to its committees, and it was successful in achieving a hearing from the conference's Commissions for International Labour Legislation and then the League of Nations Commission. One key and concrete outcome of the IAWC's work was Article 7 of the Covenant of the League of Nations: "All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women." More generally, the IAWC placed the issue of women's rights at the center of the new world order that was established in Paris.[76][77]
Pan-African Congress[edit]
The first Pan-African Congress, supported by W.E.B. Du Bois, unsuccessfully petitioned the Paris Conference to turn Germany's colonies over to an international organization instead of to other colonial powers.[78]: 16